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Lunar rover RAVEN

Posted: Jun 18, 2010 | 29 sec

Undergraduate science and engineering students at ASU teamed up with the University of Maryland to develop and test a mobile robot, code-named RAVEN (Robotic Assist Vehicle for Extraterrestrial Navigation). Their development took first place in the 2010 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage (RASC-AL), beating out all the top undergrad universities in the country.

RAVEN is a three-wheel, 330-pound (150-kg) rover can traverse 20 degree slopes and is able to travel at speeds up to 3 feet/second (1m/s). This video, shot by one of the students on the winning team, shows the lunar rover's ability to carry experiments, samples and tools, which would make RAVEN an ideal robotic field assistant for astronaut-scientists.